HYGIENE tests highlighting potential health hazards in the borough’s restaurants and bars are to be published on-line.

Premises with pest control problems or those lacking staff with sanitation training will be scrutinised by browsers logging onto the Guildford Borough Council website to see how their favourite venue fares.

The council’s environmental health team is in the preliminary stages of making the food hygiene inspection reports, previously only accessible via the Freedom of Information Act, user-friendly for the community. It is expected to go live in the next financial year.

A star-rated score system will be introduced on the website to help residents interpret the data. The environmental health team carries out about 450 inspections each year. Assessments are made on the type of business, the type of clientele and hygiene standards.

Venues are rated from A to E, with A being the most high risk. The borough’s three current A-rated premises are inspected every six months and the 490 C-rated outlets every 18 months.

“Some people will go with their instinct if they like the décor and the atmosphere,” he explained. “However, there will be some people, if they are weighing up whether to go to this one or another, that this could be the deciding factor.

“The good businesses will be very keen on it, the poor businesses won’t be.”

Mr Woodhatch said the majority of reports are positive.

However, excerpts from one recent assessment read: “I am concerned to note that no food handlers have been formally trained in food hygiene.”

Another highlighted the fact that kitchen cleaning cloths were found draped over a motorbike outside.

Mr Woodhatch said the scheme would encourage businesses to improve.

“If they thought their customers could be logging on to the website checking them out it’s a good incentive,” he said.

Rushmore and Camden Borough Councils will also publish the reports on the internet. Mr Woodhatch stressed the plans were in their early stages and that a report would be heard by the council’s decision-making Executive.

Publishing the reports in their current form, Mr Woodhatch said, would be misleading and that a challenging exercise lay ahead.

Some venues, for example, might fall into category A because of its vulnerable clientele rather than because it has a poor sanitation record.